It was a family birthday that ended in tears. On July 3, Sarah Attia and her four children were waiting to hold a small party in Cairo for her husband, Khaled Al-Qazzaz.

Instead, Attia got a hastily sent message from Qazzaz: “forgive me, I choose to stay with the president.”

Those words sealed the fate of the Canadian permanent resident, who was swept up in a wave of arrests that followed the military-backed overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi after days of protests against a weakening economy and authoritarian measures.

Although not a member of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, 34-year-old Qazzaz had been his secretary for foreign relations. Earlier he had joined the revolution to topple the Hosni Mubarak regime, and volunteered for Morsi’s Freedom and Justice Party.

Now he is in his ninth month of detention, isolated in a cockroach-infested cell in the high-security wing of Cairo’s Tora prison, known as the Scorpion.

Qazzaz has yet to be charged with any offence. And as Foreign Minister John Baird arrived in Egypt on an official visit Thursday, Attia made a plea for him to intervene in her husband’s case.

“I hope he will take the correct stance for Canada, calling for the release of Khaled, (Canadian Al-Jazeera journalist) Mohamed Fahmy and any other Canadians,” she said from Toronto Thursday. “Until then I need him to request that Khaled’s prison conditions be improved.”

When Qazzaz was initially seized, along with Morsi and dozens of his staff and supporters, Attia had no idea where he had been taken. “He disappeared for two months,” she said. “I got very short phone calls every few days just saying he was alive.”

But when human rights groups protested his detention, Qazzaz was moved to Tora, still without charge. “When I first saw him, his colouring was bad. He seemed exhausted and unfocused. He’s not allowed to leave his cell, which is 2 metres by 2.5 metres, with a toilet that doesn’t work, insects and blood on the walls,” she said.

“He has pain from a nerve in his neck and has lost movement in his left arm, and he has blood pressure problems.”

Lawyers’ attempts to get Qazzaz a mattress and special pillow have failed, although he is allowed to receive food from his family. Solitary confinement has been widely denounced as a form of torture.

Since Morsi’s ouster, the military-backed government has declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization and, in a move that sparked international outcry, simultaneously sentenced 529 alleged supporters to death without the right to defend themselves.

Toronto-born Attia met Qazzaz at U of T when both were taking engineering degrees. They married in 2004.

A year later the couple moved to Cairo and Attia opened the American section of the non-sectarian Mokatam Language and International School “to teach children about human rights, volunteerism and all the things we valued in Canada.” She is the principal of the school, which now has about 1,000 students from kindergarten to Grade 12.

Attia says that since Qazzaz’s arrest the family has been living in fear for him, and for their own security. Last fall his ailing 70-year-old father was also arrested without charge.

In an open letter this week, Amnesty International called on Baird to convey a “clear message” on what 14 human rights organizations call a “severe and comprehensive crackdown” against those who publicly criticize the Egyptian government. They also called for the release of Qazzaz and Fahmy.

Attia said that officials at the Canadian embassy have been “very supportive,” but were not allowed to make consular visits to her husband. As he is not a Canadian citizen, he is not entitled to consular assistance.